WFH, hybrid, and remote work: an employer’s global guide in 2026

The defining feature of statute-heavy regimes is that the employer’s core obligations (equipment provision, expense reimbursement, health and safety, right to disconnect) are not waivable by contract. Collective bargaining can supplement but not reduce these floors.

Spain:

Ley 10/2021 defines regular telework as more than 30 % of contracted hours over any 3-month period. A written telework agreement is mandatory before commencement. Article 7 of Ley 10/2021 states explicitly that teleworking cannot entail any cost to the worker: the employer must provide or pay for equipment, internet connections, software, electricity, and other supplies. The right to disconnect is enforceable through the written agreement.

In 2026, Spain’s Tribunal Supremo held that where an employer cannot produce the mandatory working-time register (registro horario), a cardiac event at home during the working day is presumed a workplace accident; the burden of proof inverts onto the employer. That is the strongest single home-office accident precedent on the books for 2026.

Portugal:

Law 83/2021 (Labour Code amendments, effective 1 January 2022) and DL 79/2022 require a written telework agreement, with open-ended arrangements terminable on 60 days’ notice. The employer guarantees equipment and must reimburse additional expenses proven by the worker (energy, internet). Privacy protections cover image and sound capture; physical workplace visits require 24 hours’ notice plus consent.

Employees with children under three, single parents with children under eight, and victims of domestic violence have a right to request telework. The D8 digital nomad visa minimum is €3,680/month (4× minimum wage) in 2026.

Mexico:

LFT Capítulo XII Bis (Articles 330-A through 330-K) defines telework as any arrangement with more than 40 % of working hours remote, using ICT. NOM-037-STPS-2023 (in force 5 December 2023) operationalises the standard: written Telework Policy, mandatory ergonomic chair plus all necessary supplies, proportional cost-sharing of internet and energy, right to disconnect, safety-and-health verification of the remote workspace (by visit with consent or photographic checklist), annual training, and a mechanism for employees facing domestic violence to return on-site. NOM-037 applies to all employers regardless of sector or size.

The 3 March 2026 constitutional amendment to Article 123 (with secondary LFT reform on 1 May 2026) launches the phased 48-to-40-hour workweek and introduces mandatory electronic time-tracking under Article 132 fr XXXIV from 1 January 2027.

Brazil:

Lei 14.442/2022 (effective September 2022) extended the CLT telework framework (Articles 75-A-E) to hybrid workers, narrowed the working-time exemption to task/production employees only, and required employment contracts to address expense responsibility. Reversal to on-site work requires 48 hours’ written notice. Employers must prioritise telework allocation to employees with disabilities and parents of children under four.

Brazilian law applies to employees hired in Brazil who choose to telework abroad, unless otherwise contractually agreed.

Chile:

Ley 21.220 (effective 1 April 2020) regulates distance work and telework through Article 152 quáter G and following. Employers must provide tools, communicate occupational H&S conditions per Decree 18/2020, and conduct risk identification with ergonomic checklists.

Argentina:

Ley 27.555 (effective 1 April 2021) sets one of the most demanding equipment standards globally: employers must physically supply all tools, equipment, and furniture, including ergonomic chairs and desks. Connectivity and utility increases must be covered.

The right to digital disconnection is statutory; out-of-hours contact can be recharacterised as overtime. Hiring foreign non-resident teleworkers requires Ministry of Labour authorisation, and collective agreements must cap foreign remote employees.

Colombia:

Ley 2191 (effective 6 January 2022) codifies the right to disconnect for all employees. Employers must draft a written internal policy covering exercise mechanisms, an anonymous complaints channel, and a due-process procedure. Breach complaints go to the Ministry of Labour and may constitute workplace harassment if persistent.

Italy:

Legge 81/2017 governs lavoro agile (smart working). A written individual agreement must be filed with the Ministry of Labour via the online portal within 5 days; failure incurs fines of €100-500 per employee. The agreement specifies duration, place(s) of work, tools, right-to-disconnect periods, reversibility, and H&S.

INAIL provides accident insurance for both on-site and remote hours. Notably, Italian law does not require employers to provide equipment or reimburse internet/electricity, a key distinction from Iberian and LATAM regimes.

France:

Code du Travail Art. L1222-9 requires telework to be voluntary, implemented via collective agreement, employer charter (in CSE consultation), or individual agreement. Employers must provide equipment and bear compliant electrical installation costs. The right to disconnect is codified in Art. L2242-17, with annual negotiations on work-life boundaries required.

The Cour de Cassation (Cass. Soc., 19 March 2025, No. 22-17.315) held that professional use of an employee’s home entitles them to compensation, subject to a 2-year limitation. A 2023 Court of Appeal line held that accidents outside declared telework hours or location are not automatically workplace accidents; the employee must prove the nexus.

Belgium:

The Act of 3 October 2022 requires private-sector employers with 20 or more employees to implement a right-to-disconnect policy (effective 1 April 2023). The policy must cover unavailability modalities, digital-tool guidelines, and training.

Enforcement penalties (€251-€25,000 per violation) do not apply until 4 July 2026, when the three-year deferral period ends. That date is when the policy obligation becomes a fine schedule.

The EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) entered into force on 1 August 2024 and classifies AI systems used in employment, worker management, and access to self-employment under Annex III §4 as high-risk. The scope is broad. It covers AI used for recruitment and selection, including targeted advertising, CV filtering, and candidate evaluation, together with AI influencing terms-of-work decisions such as promotion, termination, task allocation, and worker-performance monitoring.

The compliance layer is substantial. Employers and providers deploying covered systems may need conformity assessments, registration in the EU high-risk AI database, CE marking, risk-management frameworks, data-governance controls, technical documentation, transparency and human-oversight mechanisms, and accuracy and robustness testing. Penalties reach up to EUR 15 million or 3 % of global annual turnover.

The operative compliance deadline remains 2 August 2026. The European Commission’s 19 November 2025 Digital Omnibus package proposed deferring enforcement to 2 December 2027, contingent on harmonised standards being finalised, but trilogue negotiations had not reached agreement as of late April 2026. Until a formal legislative instrument confirms deferral, most legal advisers continue treating 2 August 2026 as the active compliance date.

Directive 2023/970, which entered into force in June 2023, must be transposed by all EU Member States by 7 June 2026. The Directive introduces several obligations that directly affect distributed and remote-work compensation structures across Europe:

• Mandatory pay-range disclosure during recruitment
• Employee rights to pay information for equal work
• Prohibition on pay-secrecy clauses
• Gender-neutral pay structures based on objective criteria
• Gender pay-gap reporting obligations that scale by workforce size
• Joint pay assessments where unjustified pay gaps exceed 5 %

The Directive matters directly for employers using location-based or tiered geo-pay models across multiple jurisdictions. Compensation structures now need to be documented, consistently applied, and defensible under equal-pay scrutiny.

As of May 2026, only a limited number of Member States had published partially finalised draft legislation, but the European Commission continues treating 7 June 2026 as the operative compliance deadline.

Directive (EU) 2024/2831 entered into force on 1 December 2024, with Member States required to transpose it by 2 December 2026. The Directive introduces a rebuttable presumption of employment for platform workers meeting national criteria and expands regulation around algorithmic management systems used in platform work.

Key obligations include:

• Transparency around automated systems used for work allocation, pricing, account restrictions, and performance evaluation
• Human oversight of significant automated decisions affecting workers
• Restrictions on processing sensitive data, including emotional or psychological state, inferred characteristics, and most biometric data beyond authentication purposes

As of May 2026, most Member States, including Germany, France, Ireland, and Italy, had not yet completed national transposition. Spain’s existing Ley Rider already regulates similar territory. Multinational employers using gig-platform or hybrid contractor models in the EU should review worker-classification exposure before the December 2026 deadline.

The EU/EEA/Swiss Framework Agreement on social security for cross-border telework (1 July 2023, 21+ signatories including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland) lets a cross-border teleworker remain socially insured in the employer’s country provided telework in the residence country is less than 50 % of total working time. 

Where telework in the residence country is 25 %-49 %, apply for a Framework Agreement A1 in the employer’s country; below 25 %, standard multi-state A1 rules apply (in the residence country). Applications cannot be filed retroactively for more than 3 months. Without the Framework Agreement, the standard EU Regulation 883/2004 rule would trigger social-security shift to the residence country once 25 %+ of work is performed there.

On 18-19 November 2025, the OECD Council adopted the 2025 Update to the Model Tax Convention, introducing the first major revision of permanent-establishment commentary since 2017. The update restructures Article 5(1) around a two-stage framework for assessing home-office PE exposure.

Stage 1: Time threshold (50 % indicator)

Where an employee works from a home office for less than 50 % of total working time over any rolling 12-month period, a fixed place of business will generally not be considered to exist. The 50 % threshold is an indicator rather than a statutory safe harbour, meaning PE can still arise below that level where other factors point toward commercial presence.

Stage 2: Commercial reason test (above 50 %)

Where remote work exceeds the 50 % indicator, PE arises only if there is a genuine commercial reason for the employee’s presence in that jurisdiction. Examples include regular interaction with local clients or suppliers, activities materially facilitating the employer’s business, or real-time services benefiting from physical proximity. Remote work driven purely by employee preference, talent retention, or office-cost reduction does not in itself create a commercial reason. The contractual designation of a home address as the employee’s workplace also no longer automatically places that location “at the disposal” of the employer.

The 2025 update applies only to the fixed-place-of-business analysis under Article 5(1). The dependent-agent PE framework under Article 5(5) remains unchanged. An employee with authority to conclude contracts on behalf of the employer can still create PE regardless of working-time thresholds or commercial-reason analysis.

The conventional 183-day rule under most bilateral tax treaties determines individual tax residency, but employer-level PE exposure is a separate analysis. A remote employee spending fewer than 183 days in a country can still create PE risk for the employer, while an employee above the 183-day threshold may become individually tax-resident without the employer necessarily creating a PE.

Most employer workation policies therefore operate well below treaty thresholds. Common approaches cap overseas remote working at roughly 20-30 days per country each year to maintain distance from PE, social-security, and individual tax-residency exposure. Some employers extend allowances to 90 days where bilateral treaty protection is considered strong and the OECD commercial-reason test is unlikely to be triggered.

Tourist visa misuse for paid remote work creates immigration violation risk (deportation, visa ban) and does not insulate the employer from PE or social security obligations triggered by the employee’s physical presence.